Tips for Meet the Teacher Night (and 5 FREEBIES!)

Hello friends- it's Throwback Thursday, to one of my most popular posts this week!

This open house/ meet the teacher night post was originally published August 25, 2012.

If you’re new here, you may not know that I’m running a series of new teacher tips called I Just Got a Teaching Job… Now What?!



I don’t know about you, but for me, meeting the kids is nowhere near as nerve-wracking as meeting the parents.

If your school has Open House, Back to School Night, Meet the Teacher Night, or anything of the sort, it’s probably one of your biggest worries as a new teacher.

For me, I student taught in Spring- so I hadn’t been part of any of this beginning of the year stuff, and I felt downright clueless. Since my parents didn’t officially come in before the first day, I made a brochure to leave on my door during registration with very basic information to know before school even started. Not every parent picked one up, but I had two or three parents mention it later, so I think it was a good move!



Yes, the Scotch tape is not the best look, but it was falling apart without it! Let me know if you’re interested in the template and I can post that, too! Sorry- no idea where this has gotten to!



This is one of those areas where talking to your fellow co-workers is so very important. You need to know:

•  Is there an open house?
•  Is open house before school starts, or after?
•  Is there a set day/ time for the whole school or grade level, or do I choose when to have it for my class?
•  Are students invited? What about siblings?
•  What things do you hand out and talk about? Can I have copies? (Remember- digital is best for easy tweaking and not having to reinvent the wheel!)
•  What sort of things do you set out for parents? Do you have them fill anything out?

At my old school, it happened before school, for the whole school on the same night, with a specific schedule. At my new school, we have a “walkabout” on the first day where parents can visit their child’s classroom before leaving, and most teachers also have their own parent meeting or open house in the next couple of weeks.

The time of your open house makes a big difference on what to do. It’s also a good idea to find out or decide if there’s a specific time frame for all of the parents to listen to you present, or if families will trickle in and out over a longer time frame.
If your open house occurs before school starts, think about what parents need to know.

You need to tell them:

• what their child needs for the first day
• how to best prepare their child for a new school year
• how to communicate with you, and how you will communicate with them
• that you are competent and confident

And the kids want to know:

• where your room is
• where their desk is
• something about their teacher
• something that will get them excited about the year!

When parents arrived at open house (for me, it was the 2nd week of school), here’s what they saw.



The Target pocket chart had directions, and then I put out a parent sheet and packet. The sheet I wanted them to return was BRIGHT pink, to hopefully make it stand out.



Grab your freebie copies of the parent information sheet and generic parent packet here.
When parents are trickling in, you want them to have something to do. I like to have things the kids are excited about, because then the kids drag their parents straight to their desks.

I had my kids give their parents a “quiz.” That day at school, kids filled out their favorites, and a note to their parent.



When parents got there, the right answers were hidden, and the kids got to give their parents a quiz and grade it. (The novelty of this is so amusing to 3rd graders.)



I got the quiz from Rachel at Minds in Bloom. You can pick up her freebie here.

After a quick summary of the packet from me, I gave parents time to check out a couple of stations where things were set out for them. I like to use some kind of tripod sign to make it clear where things are, and don’t forget to leave out some pens and pencils. Flower pens are great for making sure they don’t disappear! (You can see how I made them here.)



You can also get a copy of my parent volunteer form here (free).

The kids also got to share some of the work they’d done- a mini-book, Graphing Myself (grab as a freebie from The Tattooed Teacher!), and an All About Me writing project.



This was our first writing project. I model brainstorming important things about myself, such as things I like, things I’m good at, things about my family, places I’ve been, what I look like, how old I am, and if I’m a boy or girl.




Kids can use more than one page if they need to, and I staple them together along the top.



Then, we glue it onto a big piece of construction paper folded in half. When parents come, they read the All About Me’s and see if they can guess who the page belongs to. If they think they know, they lift up the flap, and…



see if they are right! We discuss ahead of time that their head should almost fill the page, and that they don’t look like a smiley face. We have noses, eyebrows, and eyes that don’t look like just dots. Unless long hair is covering them we have ears, too! We really focus on filling the page and adding lots of detail, and they turn out great.



The kids love seeing if they can stump their parents, and they make a really nice keepsake. I also hang onto them until the end of the year so kids can see the difference in their writing skills, their handwriting, and their drawing.

You can pick up a freebie copy of the All About Me writing sheet here.

A couple last tips:
- Make sure you have a parent conference sign-up sheet, so that parents with concerns can be pointed in the direction of a sign-up, and hopefully you won’t have to stay all night.
- Get yourself a new outfit for the night. You don’t want to do the whole try-on-10-outfits-until-you’re-satisfied thing and be late! Don’t forget a piece of jewelry or two- I’m no fashionista, but you want to look pulled together to both make a good impression and to feel confident.
- Consider making a quick slideshow of the basics you want to cover. It’ll help you focus on your presentation.
- Good luck! :)

To recap, here are your freebies:
Parent Information Sheet (updated year)
Parent Packet for Open House (editable .doc)
Parent Volunteer Form
All About Me writing page
Parent Conference Sign-Up

And links to 2 freebies from friends:
Graphing Myself from The Tattooed Teacher
Parent Night Quiz from Minds in Bloom

Whew. I had a little more to show you, but I’m going to save it for tomorrow. Please, please, please leave a comment and let me know if you downloaded anything!
(I’d be so happy if you’d consider following or pinning anything you love, too!) Have a GREAT weekend!

Now that it's a year later, I would also add that Open House/ Meet the Teacher night is a great time to introduce Remind 101 (have parents sign up RIGHT THEN) and to show them how the Scholastic Book Clubs site works to encourage ordering! Make sure to emphasize that their orders help you get more books for the classroom!

Throwback Thursday- 5 Quick Tips!

Every once in awhile, I pick up a quick tip that saves me so much time and sanity in the classroom, and I LOVE it- so I wanted to share a few of mine during Throwback Thursday. A lot of you weren't following me when this was first posted (which is awesome :)

Originally published last November.

I love simple, easy teacher tips, so I'm so excited that there's a new linky party just for them!

My goal is to give you 5 quick tips:

1) If you have a SmartBoard, and you've written a bunch of stuff but need to clear the page, use the eraser to draw a big circle around it all and then tap the middle. Everything inside the circle will disappear.
 

2) Take double grades when possible. My kids get a grade for spelling and a grade for handwriting when they take a spelling test. I grade with a two-sided marker and use one color for each grade. Yay for killing two birds with one stone!

3) Have kids taking too long for transitions? Go to Hallmark and annoy everyone who works there (I know this because this used to be me) by opening all the music cards until you find the perfect upbeat-and-fun-but-not-crazy tune. Whenever you want the kids to transition to a new center, new place, or new activity, open the card and let the music play. It's just a little snippet of the song- perfect for a transition, and your kids will get to know how long the song goes. By the time the card stops playing, you and your kids will be ready for a new song anyway!

4) Put important phone numbers ON YOUR PHONE. I realize there is probably a much cuter way of doing this than the way I have here, but it's so worth it not to have to look up the nurse's number when I need it (or for the sub not to have to search through my sub folder for the nurse's number when someone suddenly gets sick).

 

5) Do you *hate* passing out dice and counters for games whenever kids need them? I keep "game cups" that have a variety of counters and at least one die. The kids know where these are to get them, and know where they go to put them back when they're done. This works incredibly well for center games or early finishers, and the mini cups can even stack for easier storage!

So, there you have it! Five simple teacher tips :) Let me know if one of them works for you!

Of course, it's now too late to link up, but you can still read other teachers' tips at Miss Kindergarten!

Annnd special thanks to Cara at The First Grade Parade for hosting Throwback Thursday!

Happy 4th, and Teaching the Pledge of Allegiance

Happy 4th of July, American friends! And everyone else, I guess- I hope you have a happy day as well :)

This weekend we are finishing ALL of our moving- out of my classroom today, out of my apartment by Sunday! Woohoo!

My goal is to get some new content going next week, but in the meantime, today seemed like the perfect day to share one of my first posts! This is something I do every year in the first week or two of school.

Linking up with  Cara at The First Grade Parade for Throwback Thursday...

I get incredibly jealous of beautiful, organized classrooms online, and I have to say... that's just not me yet! I'm continuing to figure out how to make a classroom best work for me, especially because I'm not one of those naturally organized people, to say the least.

One thing, though, that's incredibly important to me is having a lot of print made WITH the kids up around the room. I know I'm not alone in that!

I wish I had thought to get the whole poster in this, but under our flag, we have a Pledge anchor chart. The kids say the pledge every morning, but so many of them don't actually know what words they are saying, or they don't know what those words mean.

My school is very diverse, and I have multiple students who are from other countries, so I think it's particularly important to teach the Pledge! (We are in a college town and a lot of visiting professors come to the area for short amounts of time.)

We spent some time at the beginning of the year copying the words of the Pledge, and then breaking it down into kid-friendly language. It's a great lesson in synonyms and practical use of the dictionary, but it also helps students learn some of the basic principles of our country.

They say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, and I love feeling like my class actually understands what they are saying!

*P.S.- I've been asked about how I handle "under God" in a public school.

When we get to "under God," which was only added in 1954 (interestingly enough), I talk with the students about how freedom of religion was one of the major reasons that many early Americans had come here and wanted to start their own country. We are a public school with many kids from different religions, and this is something that I think is incredibly important to recognize. Most of the kids from our country don't realize that this freedom isn't something everyone in the world has, and they tend to think it's pretty cool once they know that! It's a good way for kids to learn about why "under God" is important in the pledge while still respecting the fact that my kids may not believe it's about the same god as I do.

As an update, I also use this book to model using the illustrations to help us understand:

Do you do anything like this in your classroom to make the Pledge of Allegiance meaningful?

Math Journal Throwback Thursday!

I love using math journals. They are such a great way to encourage perseverant problem solving and using different ways of thinking! (Hellooo, Common Core!)  I'm linking up with Throwback Thursday to share a post from June of last year. Don't forget to pick up the freebie!

(P.S.- Keep in mind that the photos, etc. are from when I taught a 2nd grade class, although I did something very similar with my 3rd graders.)

I'm guest blogging over at Second Grade Math Maniac today about one of my favorite quick math activities for building number sense:

Click on the photo to read all about it!

When I was little, we learned strategies for "word problems." Usually, we would practice two or three that followed a certain pattern to solve, and then we would have an assignment that followed the same pattern. Sometimes we learned "clue words" that would tell us, supposedly, which pattern to follow. But they were inconsistent- "more" could mean adding, but in the case of "how many more" it could also mean subtracting. And I didn't know why I should subtract when it said "how many more"- it was just an arbitrary thing I had to remember.

I hated math.

Everything else came pretty easily to me, but math took some work, and Elementary Jenny did NOT like that.

And then I got to middle school, and took pre-algebra. My teacher, Mr. Wall, was phenomenal. He was an old-school teacher with high expectations, but he also put more time in with his students than just about any academic teacher I ever had. If you ever needed help, or wanted his help studying for a test, he would come in before or after school to help you. And every Wednesday morning, he hosted MathCounts in his room. If you came, more often than not he would bring donuts.

If you've never heard of MathCounts, it's a program specifically designed to challenge kids with tough problem-solving questions. But- Mr. Wall knew how to make it fun. He'd give us a page with 15 impossible problems, and if you got 2 or 3 right, that was a good day! And somehow, he made us believe that. These weren't problems that followed a pattern- no, these were problems that you might have to try 3 strategies to figure out, and you still might not get it.  He would always let us try it (even if it was the wrong way), and after awhile might give hints to get us going in the right direction, but he never gave up and told us how to do it. And if someone else in the group managed to solve one we were stuck on, that student could tell us how they figured it out. They were puzzles, using all different kinds of math, and we would spend an hour pushing ourselves to figure out the puzzles.

Because they were so hard, and there was no formula, and we were doing it without the help of the teacher, when you did get one, it was the most amazing feeling.

And, that year, I realized that maybe I wasn't so bad at math.

Yep- puzzling away at tough problems and getting maybe 3 out of 15- and that's the year I realized I could do math.

Mr. Wall was that teacher who changed me as a learner. We've all had one. But here's how I take that and make it change me as a teacher.

Once a week (or, at least, that's the goal!), my students get out their math journals. (Next year I'm thinking of stepping it up to at least twice a week- possibly daily!)

We made our math journals during the first week of school. I cut construction paper to the size of a composition notebook cover, and then walked them through the steps. I was very detailed so that the title would be easy to read (or because I'm a control freak- not sure).

First, you write "So-and-So's Math Journal" in the middle with red.

Then, you use blue to make a cloud around the words.

Finally, you use different colors to write what you think of when you hear the word "math." I show them my example, and I tell them they can be different names for a number, math tools, shapes, math units, symbols, math words, time, money, measurement, ten frames, fractions, base ten blocks... anything that is "math."

And then, we store them in these shower caddy things with our science journals (so that when math journal time, one kid goes to get the bin for his group). The first few times, we work through problems together and I model multiple strategies.

When we get out the journals, I have students glue in the problem with a gluestick and write the date. Then, they have to visually represent the problem in some way. This really helps with those students who "don't know how to solve it" because it gives them somewhere to start. (And sometimes, helps them discover a way to try.)

Then, if they used a math equation, they have to write it with a box around it so it's easy for me to see. After that, they need to write how they solved the problem (which could be done all verbally to save time, or with younger students). And finally, they write their final answer in a sentence. (This really helps to make sure they answered the correct question.)

 

We don't do "word problems" in my class. We do problem solving. Problem solving doesn't have a formula, or a "right way" to solve. I always teach that math is awesome, because you can do things the way it makes sense to you, and still get the right answer. Take this problem for example:

There were 7 ducks and 9 geese at the pond. How many more geese than ducks are there?

Well, some of my students used 9-7 = 2.
Some of them drew ducks in one row, and geese below and saw that two didn't have partners.
Some used 7+2 = 9.
One thought that if you had 9 you would have to take away 2 for the number to be equal.
Another drew two unit bars, one for ducks, and one for geese, before subtracting.

And guess what? They all got the answer: 2 more geese.

Many of us probably have an "author's chair" or time for sharing in writer's workshop- but how many of you have a time for your mathematicians to share their thinking? Even with a simple problem, I like to say, "How did you solve that? Great! Who used a different strategy? What was your method?" (and I make a point of using those words so that they don't startle my students on a test.) A document camera is fantastic for sharing their work. My students start to look for other ways to solve something, because they know a variety of strategies are valued. They're not looking off of their neighbor as often, because they know their work doesn't have to be the same.

My students are much more eager to attack a new problem when they know there isn't a certain "right" way. They will also try something they've never been "taught" before (like multiplication or division problems for my 2nd graders) because they're not afraid to just try. They know I won't get mad if they don't get the right answer, or don't get an answer at all. They know they are "making their brain stronger" when they take on a challenge, and that I will appreciate their effort no matter what.

It's not a perfect method, of course- you'll still have students get stuck, or frustrated, from time to time. But the overall attitude towards math in my classroom became so much better when I started encouraging multiple ways to solve the same problem. And the best part? They're building number sense, skills, and confidence to solve not only problems in the next grade, but problems in the real world.

To get you started, here's a week's worth of math journal prompts. You can get the PDF and keep the cute font here, or get the Word document (and insert your students' names for better engagement) here. All you need to do is print the number you need, cut off the right edge (if you use a composition book, anyway!), and cut into strips.

Do you use math journals? Any tips for me to make mine better? :)